WHY WE MUST HAVE DRUG TESTS AT WORK

ON CURRENT trends, within two years it will be almost impossible for
recreational drug users to get a job with larger companies.

Drug testing at work is probably the most effective weapon we have against
adult substance abuse. It is a proven, low-cost strategy, which identifies
those needing help, reduces demand, cuts down on accidents and sick leave,
improves attendance and increases productivity.

Yet testing is controversial: it penalises users with positive tests that
can bear little or no relation to performance, encourages knee-jerk
dismissal, and discrimination at interviews. It costs money, invades
privacy and smacks of authoritarianism.

In a dramatic policy shift, Keith Hellawell, the drugs czar, and government
ministers have started encouraging drug testing by employers. They are
following a quiet revolution, largely unreported because firms have been
scared of bad publicity.

The Government's Forensic Science Agency carried out more than a million
workplace tests last year, with great interest from industry. Last month
the International Petroleum Exchange joined London Transport and many
others in random testing.

This follows huge success in America where 80 per cent of big companies
spend more than UKP200 million a year testing for drugs at work, affecting
40 per cent of the workforce. By 2005 up to 80 per cent of workers will be
covered.

But Britain also has a growing problem with addiction: 8 per cent of men
and 2 per cent of women abuse drugs or alcohol, costing at least UKP3
billion a year in accidents and absence alone.

Every office, factory, train operator, airline, construction company and
hospital is affected with risks to public health and
profitability.Workplace testing in America is being forced on employers for
economic and safety reasons. Drug companies that don't test will go bust.
Their insurance premiums will go through the roof.

American studies show that substance abusers (including alcohol) are 33 per
cent less productive, three times as likely to be late, four times as
likely to hurt others at work or themselves, five times as likely to sue
for compensation and ten times as likely to miss work.

A Wisconsin cardboard factory was contacted recently by its insurers, who
were worried about high levels of injury. Random testing was introduced and
accidents fell 72 per cent the following year, with an 80 per cent decrease
in days lost.

A recent report in The Lancet revealed that 37 per cent of male junior
doctors were using cannabis and 14 per cent cocaine, amphetamines,
barbiturates, LSD, eCstasy, magic mushrooms or other substances. The figure
for women was 12 per cent. The BMA's figures suggest up to 10 per cent of
all doctors may abuse either alcohol or illegal drugs, including cocaine,
crack and heroin. That's almost 10,000 doctors, treating perhaps 200,000
patients every day. If you're too drunk or doped to drive, you shouldn't be
operating - nor working a crane or cement-mixer for that matter. Nor making
decisions on which other people's futures depend. Testing is cheap.
Breathalysers cost UKP40 with virtually no running costs while UKP30 urine
tests for drugs only have to be carried out on a few to be effective.
London Transport tests just 5 per cent of drivers a year.

That means each worker is checked on average once every 20 years. Hardly a
mass invasion of privacy, yet more than enough to be a powerful deterrent.
In America positive test rates have fallen from 13.6 per cent to 4.9 per
cent in a decade. This is a method that works.

However, testing is barbaric unless introduced as part of a package of
education and access to confidential treatment. The primary aim should not
be to sack, but to discourage abuse, offer help and treat. Effective
programmes are those where the workforce approves a humane, compassionate
and fair anti-drugs policy.

There are many problems with testing: for example, cannabis tests are
almost useless, with positive tests weeks after use. What blood levels are
acceptable for illegal drugs? Who should be tested? How often and what
action should be taken?

One thing is clear: drug and alcohol testing will continue to spread
regardless of government support, as the most practical and cost effective
way to strengthen existing drugs and alcohol policies at work. Either we
take hold of the issue now or the issue will take hold of us.

Dr Patrick Dixon is director of Global Change Ltd and author of The Truth
about Drugs, Hodder UKP7.99.